FM Station Cafe — Restaurant in Newburyport

While the food was very good- I must say that the service, while courteous, was lacking. We arrived and were promptly seated at a comfortable table and given menus. From there the situation deteriorated. We were not asked for our drink order for 15 minutes, and then the order was wrong (easy mistake, was given iced tea instead of iced coffee), but then, while our waitress was walking back and forth with a coffee pot in her hand we were never addressed, so I could not remedy the mistake. I honestly don't normally look at my watch when waiting for food, however I happened to get a text right after we ordered so I know that the food took 45 minutes to get to our table. No waitress or manager ever came to the table to explain the delay or apologize. I finally had to hail someone and let them know that we had been waiting for 3 quarters of an hour. They were astounded and I have to say the food arrived within 5 minutes and was very good. Was this just a bad day? Were they understaffed? I really don't know? I was never given an explanation of why the food took so long or why our waitress was so "busy" that she could not bother to give a refill on coffee. I may try this place again, it is close to my house, and the food was good enough to warrant another go- and as I said, no one was rude- just seemed not so well-trained in hospitality? For the record, I am a chef and caterer- so I do give people a second chance.. I will give them another chance and hope that it was a bad day-and then I will amend my review- if not for the wait I would have...

I would give less stars but you have to leave 1 to leave a review. We went today for breakfast based on all the great reviews. Yes, the pandemic has really hit the restaurant business terribly. Many places can't get good help. But can you train the help you have better?? It was seat yourself, at least outside so we did. The problem is the staff has no system to know who came first. 3 other tables arrived after us and got their orders taken first. How about working more efficiently and taking all the tables orders and then entering them? Everyone was waiting for their orders to be taken so instead of going to 1 table, taking their order, going inside and entering it, take all tables that are ready and then go enter them. The other tables got their food and were finished before we even got ours. We were waiting about an hour. The food finally came. I ordered the Irish breakfast (eggs bene with hash) The eggs were over cooked, hardly any hash and neither the hollandaise nor the hash had any flavor at all. The waitress did not come back to ask if everything was ok and I was so hungry at the point I wasn't going to send it back and wait another hour anyway. Most definitely will...

I can assure you this is not 5 star worthy! No hostess, told to pick a seat outside, only problem w/that is they don't keep track of who's seated first, therefore literally 3 other tables coming in after us were all waited on before us and service was already ridiculously slow which we are patient about bc of staffing but this was beyond obnoxiously slow and unorganized. To top it off the bennie's eggs were hard, not runny but we didn't dare send back bc of the wait. In addition, the hollandaise and hash was tasteless. The staff needs to be trained as they only serviced one table at a time going in and out, instead of bringing menus, waters, or anything for more than one table at a time. Mind you they weren't even that busy. We're local, wanting to try but will never give...